Often Irreverent, Mostly Rational Blog for Fans of the Toronto Blue Jays. One Day, We'll Be Perfect.

Friday, February 13, 2009

The Tao's Wandering Eye: Nick Johnson

With the Nationals' recent signing of some dude who doesn't even like baseball, they are left with a veritable cornucopia of 1B/OF/DH types. And seeing as how they are still stuck in the National League, they're not going to be able to get them all into the lineup on a regular basis.

Chances are that someone out of that mix is going to get moved, and if we had our druthers, the Jays would take a run at oft-injured first baseman Nick Johnson.

Sure, Johnson's missed a ton of games over his career due to a series of injuries. But when he's been healthy and when he's played, he's put up the sort of offensive numbers that would make the Jays' current lineup blush.

Johnson sports a .396 on base percentage and an .852 OPS over his eight-year career with the Yankees, Expos and Nationals. With the exception of Scott Rolen (whose glory days are behind him), nobody on the Jays' current roster even comes close to those numbers. Not Wells (.332, .812), not Rios (.338, .793), and certainly not Overbay (.362, .809).

In his last fully healthy season in 2006, Johnson posted a .948 OPS with 46 doubles, 23 homers and 110 walks in 500 ABs for the Nats.

Of course, 2006 is a long time ago, and Johnson missed most of last season with a wrist tendon injury, so there's an obvious question as to how many left-handed hitting first basemen with gimpy appendages you need on one roster. At the same time, it's at least reasonable to expect that a healthy Johnson would put up better numbers in 2009 than Overbay, Adam Lind, Kevin Millar, José Bautista or even Travis Snider, and that the Nationals may be willing to part with him for less than his value.

With a salary of just over $5 million for next season, Johnson would be affordable to the Jays provided they were able to send some salary back in the other direction. And even if the numbers don't necessarily add up, how can you put a price on adding a guy to your roster who is the spitting image of Pvt. Pyle from Full Metal Jacket?

Who do you trade, Bautista? Do the Nats want him? Is anyone else who doesn't make peanuts expendable? Otherwise, if the Jays had 5 million available you would have thought that they would have taken a run at Abreu, assuming he'd be willing to come to Toronto.

On a lesser note, another guy who is kind of squeezed out is Wily Mo Pena. Our Hydra pitching coach might figure him out and he makes only $2 million. If you could get HIM for Frasor (and some throw in) your payroll would only go up about a half million.